In recent years, a movement has gained traction to replace incandescent light bulbs with lighting fixtures that employ more efficient lighting technologies as well as to replace relatively efficient fluorescent lighting fixtures with lighting technologies that produce a more pleasing, natural light. One such technology that shows tremendous promise employs light emitting diodes (LEDs). Compared with incandescent bulbs, LED-based light fixtures are much more efficient at converting electrical energy into light, are longer lasting, and are also capable of producing light that is very natural. Compared with fluorescent lighting, LED-based fixtures are also very efficient, but are capable of producing light that is much more natural and more capable of accurately rendering colors. As a result, lighting fixtures that employ LED technologies are expected to replace incandescent and fluorescent bulbs in residential, commercial, and industrial applications.
Unlike incandescent bulbs that operate by subjecting a filament to a desired current, LED-based lighting fixtures require electronics to drive one or more LEDs. The electronics generally include a power supply and a special control circuitry to provide uniquely configured signals that are required to drive the one or more LEDs in a desired fashion. The presence of the control circuitry adds a level of intelligence to the lighting fixtures that can be leveraged to employ various types of lighting control. The lighting control can be provided solely from within the fixture or from remote control systems.
Unfortunately, there is limited compatibility between available lighting fixtures and available control systems, because the companies that provide the lighting fixtures are generally not the same companies that provide the control systems that control the lighting fixtures. In many instances, the control system companies are not fully aware of the all of the available features of the lighting fixtures, and thus, many potentially valuable or desirable features of the lighting fixtures are never employed when the lighting fixtures are under the control of a different company's control system. Further, different control systems from different companies may use different communication buses and different protocols for communications. Thus, different lighting fixtures must be specifically designed to work with the different control systems, communication buses, and communication protocols. All of these variables increase the design, manufacturing, and maintenance costs of the lighting fixture companies while many features of the lighting fixtures remain under utilized.
As such, there is a need for a flexible lighting architecture that can be effectively and efficiently controlled by different lighting control systems and support a varying array of control features.